CMSWire's Top Information Management Stories of 2017

It is increasingly difficult to give a precise, inclusive definition of what information management is. Over the past year, the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the workplace has changed the face of traditional information management drastically.

If, in the past, information management was about managing the lifecycle of information from entry into the organization to its destruction or archiving, now it also refers to managing enterprise data outside the firewall, digging into that information for business insights, emerging technologies like Blockchain, and even the digital transformation of organizations.

Our top information management stories of 2017 clearly demonstrate that and also show just how turbulent the space actually is. Here are our Top 10 from last year.

Over the past year, we've witnessed a push to using headless CMSs. While the concept is far from new, the interest reflects a growing recognition that managing content for multiple channels is hard to do well while also managing those channels disparately.

Meanwhile, in the enterprise space, there's growing recognition that the old ECM deployment models have failed and leveraging content services is a better approach for managing enterprise.

Emerging digital businesses are reshaping the landscape of many industries, from transportation and hospitality, to construction and manufacturing. As established companies respond to the pressure to compete with these digital-only companies, they are finding that their enterprise IT organizations also need to evolve both their implementation strategies and core aspects of their cultures.

Fortunately, the models of success used by early adopters often provide blueprints that more established companies can follow to implement their own strategies more quickly and efficiently.

What are the biggest risks for internal audit this and next year? That was the topic of an article written by consultants at corporate governance recruitment firm Barclay Simpson titled, "What are 6 of the biggest risks for internal auditors in 2018?"

Blockchain technology could revolutionize the way businesses market to and retain their customers. In fact, it has the potential to improve businesses in big ways. In the finance industry, for example, the estimated annual savings for banks is $8 million to $12 million annually.

Blockchain is a digital technology that provides a new model for sharing and securing data, making it easier for businesses to work cooperatively together via the internet.

Search and big data analytics have evolved significantly over the last few years, and organizations are increasingly using these technologies to meet their mission-critical needs. At the beginning of 2016, we were talking a lot about machine learning and semantic search and how they would be key developments in this space.

Those have certainly been hot topics and continue to be areas that companies are seeking to exploit for their data-driven applications. And we were still talking about them in 2017.

Google Site Search — the widely deployed tool designed to bring the power of Google’s search engine to any website — is on its death bed. Google confirmed sales of Google Site Search (GSS) will stop April 1, 2017 and the product itself will disappear on April 1, 2018. In the meantime, existing customers can keep using GSS for the life of their current license.

Rohit Ghai resigned from Dell EMC's Enterprise Content Division (ECD), injecting more uncertainty about the fate of Documentum and its sister products as their acquisition by OpenText nears. OpenText announced its plans to acquire Documentum and EMC's other ECD businesses, including InfoArchive and EMC Leap in September, just a week after Dell finalized the purchase of EMC. OpenText's deal closed Jan. 17, sources told CMSWire. But the purchase will include a slim C-Suite.

Irvine, Calif.-based Kofax was sold in April of this year. Company CEO Reynolds Bish revealed the news at Inspire 2017, the enterprise content management (ECM) software provider's annual user conference.

When Apex purchased Lexmark, the company indicated that Lexmark's software business (called Kofax from here on out) was up for sale.

In January OpenText announced its plans to acquire Documentum and EMC's other ECD businesses, including InfoArchive, EMC Leap in September, just a week after Dell finalized the purchase of EMC.

In a statement, OpenText CEO1 and CTO Mark J. Barrenechea said customers are rethinking their enterprise platforms to better compete in the digital age — and enterprise information management "is the key platform to enable that transformation." He continued, "Our acquisition of Documentum and the Enterprise Content Division from DELL EMC significantly strengthens our market leading position.”

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